samhill wrote:Well tough guys, who among you would walk up & climb into a boat to arrest a man known to have both weapons & explosives? Maybe he did or maybe he didn't have a gun but how do you know unless you get up close & personal, everything is always easy after the fact.

Jeff, I think you need to reread his question. The homeowner had no idea the guy was in there, and by his own account beat feet when he started to figure it out.

What is the evidence that the guy didn't still have a gun? Two people saying "I heard that" doesn't make it a fact. And how does it make any sense that (1) a yard full of cops couldn't just grab a lone, wounded subject if they knew he was unarmed, or (2) they couldn't kill him if that's what they were trying to do? Checking up on the reports is fine, but some of these theories really don't seem to make much sense.

So he could have had a gun that he hadn't fired for some number of minutes. That's not proof that he was unarmed. And whether or not he was armed, if there really was an intent on the part of law enforcement to kill this guy, how is it that he's still alive? Every law enforcement person and every private citizen I heard at the time said they wanted the guy taken alive, and he was. Why is there more to this than that?

I'm not really buying your theory. If they're bad shots, 200 random shots into the boat would have killed the guy about a dozen times. They might have been trying to persuade him that he was outgunned, but if they put that many bullets into the boat without killing the guy I would suspect it was on purpose.

My guess is that the reason why they waited a few hours after firing the massive volly of rounds into the boat (prior to extercating him) was that they were hoping for him to expire as they twiddled their thumbs and patiently waited. It eventually got to be a bit of an embarrasing situation after they ultimately realized that they had failed to kill him, so eventually they had to go with plan B (given that the entire nation was watching). Only my take. Please take it with a grain of salt.

My guess is that they were trying to get him to surrender because they believed him to be armed, his brother had an explosive vest and both of them had been chucking bombs. Again, if they had such bad aim, he'd be dead by random chance.

As someone from MA, the smug disrespect from out of state people for the law enforcement people here who risked their lives - AND SUCCESSFULLY KILLED OR CAPTURED THE PERPS WITHOUT ANY CIVILIAN CASUALTIES - is pretty misplaced (and that's by far the most polite word I can think of). If you're unlucky enough to have such an incident occur in your community, hopefully you will be fortunate enough to have it resolved as effectively as it was in this case.

I was shocked and appalled by the tragic bombing, and the useless loss of innocent life and limbs. I'm extremely glad the situation was handled promptly. That said, there seem to be a lot of loose ends and inconsistencies, and I would by no means consider the situation resolved.

The eyewitness reports I've heard said both bombers were firing handguns at the time of the initial gun fight in Watertown. The criminal complaint against the second one indicates that there was an unexploded IED in the vehicle he used to get away from the initial gun fight, and 2 unexploded IED's and remnants of numerous exploded IED's (including one pressure cooker bomb) at the site of the initial gun fight. During the period of the search, it was reasonable to assume that the second bomber was armed with one or more handguns and/or IED's.

There are so many, but the largest one is no reading of Miranda rights. With that, seeing that Dzhokhar is a citizen of the USA, and that as such he should have all of the rights of a citizen, I hope this does not mean that at some juncture the Supreme Court will free him, regardless of what he says to the interrogators, or what any jury subsequently decides. I do however hope that all evidence collected post his arrest and before he is read his rights is declared ineligible for presentation to the jury, and that as the jury is being seated they are asked if they heard any of his pre Miranda confessions, etc... (with this leading to their immediate dismissal from jury duty if they admit that they have heard of such).

Others include warrantless door to door searches at gunpoint, where the home dwellers were themselves treated as if they were all terrorists.

And that brings up another issue. Since everyone and their brother at the political level and in the press, etc... has labeled Dzhokhar a terrorist, but no jury has actually decided whether or not he actually is, how on earth can he ever expect to be granted a fair trial? Did the Columbine or Newtown murders get tagged officially as terrorists, and if not, then why not?